John Yang:
Judy, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana agreed on Saturday to block the new rule while it’s being reviewed.
The judges said they took the action because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate.
Alan Wilson is the attorney general for the state of South Carolina, which is one of the plaintiffs.
Mr. Wilson, thanks so much for joining us.
Tell us why you joined this action, why you joined us challenge to this rule.
Alan Wilson (R), South Carolina Attorney General : Well, for the very reasons that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stated, because of the grave statutory and constitutional issues at stake here.
And one of the things that we did about six weeks ago is, 24 states signed a letter to the administration — two other states, by the way, did their own letter, so 26 states in all sent a letter to the president saying that what you were doing through executive diktat is unconstitutional. You’re expanding the power of OSHA beyond what Congress had originally intended it.
And so what we’re trying to do is to keep that authority constrained. OSHA does not have the authority to basically put this kind of mandate into practice. And so we’re trying to protect the 85 to 100 million Americans who would be affected by this if it were to go into effect.
